Thursday, October 04, 2007

Carnac the Smithnificent

To make up for the Cubs post, I'd like to note that Sam Smith writes a column with the subhed "Gordon, Deng could challenge Bulls' salary philosophy." After noting how decent and swell the two players are as people, he writes "So you wonder how it is that Gordon and Deng could be saying no to earning $10 million a year in the NBA. But that's apparently the situation."

Um, okay. We have one "could" in the subhed, one "could" in the piece, which is then immediately followed by an "apparently." We then move on to a "might," as in "the situation is a concern because it might be the first major test of the Bulls' philosophy." Why all the hedging? Well, there's no need for me to hedge about the answer. Sam tells us himself, admitting toward the end of the column, "I'm not sure where the Bulls are with Gordon and Deng." He's just "guessing."

Christ, man! I can do that! You're a reporter! For the love of your craft, report!

"Heck, Michael Jordan took a $100,000 cut in pay in 1990, when that was a lot of money, so the Bulls could sign another player."

I can't remember if Jordan was the greatest marketing force in the universe back in 1990, but surely he was making enough as a spokesman where he could shrug off 100 grand. And it's possible the Bulls promised him that money down the road.

Seriously. The Bulls are just bidding against themselves at this point. Might as well let them see what's out there next summer and let the Bulls match. I doubt either of those guys would take the one-year tender risking injury in hopes of getting even bigger bucks from a very small pool of teams that would even have the cap room to sign them.